On Wed, Feb 03, 2010 at 07:04:17AM -0800, martin brody wrote:
: I think it best to post it and see what others say.
: So here it is.
Digest readers:
See the attachment whose link follows RMBrody's post. Yes, the digest
does carry attachments, but as links into the archive.
Look at the tail of the post (as it appears in the digest):
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> t;
Okay that part isn't necessary, it's the same post but with pretty HTML
formatting info included.
BTW, this link ought to work to reach any Hebrew in the post.
Here's the relevent part:
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That's the siman, as a link to a PDF file.
For some weird reason, the length of the file is counted toward the
digest size. So, it caused the completion of v27n35 -- even though it
meant the digest itself held only 2 short emails!
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger A cheerful disposition is an inestimable treasure.
mi...@aishdas.org It preserves health, promotes convalescence,
http://www.aishdas.org and helps us cope with adversity.
Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' SR Hirsch, "From the Wisdom of Mishlei"

In my series of QSA on CM, I got to 184:1. I'm deleting the Hebrew for
logistical reasons, but you can see a menuqad
text at http://www.kitzur.net/main.php?siman=184&amp;nk=1
Here is my translation:
A person is prohibited from hitting his friend, and if he does hit
him, he violated a prohibition. As it says, "If" the court "must give
the wicked person lashes, [the judge will knock him down and whip
him before him according to his evil in number." A maximum of under
"forty times you shall hit him, no more; [lest you exceed hitting
him for these, a great smiting, and your brother will be ashamed
before you]." (Devarim 25:2-3) If the Torah was careful with the
corporal punishment of someone evil that he should not be hit more
than his wickedness [merited], a fortiori with the hitting of a
righteous person!
Whomever raises a hand against his friend to hit him, even though he
didn't actually hit him, is called "a wicked person". As it says,
[that Moshe "went out on the 2nd day" from Par'oh's palace "and
he saw two men, Hebrews, arguing,] and he said to the wicked one,
"Why will you hit your peer?" It does not say, "Why did you hit?" but
rather "Why will you hit?" Even though he didn't hit him yet, he is
still called a wicked person.
Whomever hits his friend, he is excommunicated with an excommunication
of the ancients. One does not include him to a minyan of ten for
any declaration of sanctity until a beis din releases him from the
excommunication, when he accepts upon himself to listen to their
ruling.
If someone is hitting him or another Jew and there is no way to
save himself or his friend from the hand of his attacker accept by
hitting him [the attacker], it is permissible to hit him.
At 9:06am EST this morning, R Dmitry Kreslavskiy (CC-ed; a friend of mine from
around the neighborhood) commented:
So how does this work? If a person is a home abuser, G-d forbid, and
hits his wife, that means he cannot be counted towards a minyan? So
what happens if he davens with another group of 9 unsuspecting
people? Is such davening not considered davening with a minyan?
To which I replied:
I think you're right. I think the people would be beshogegim not
davening with a minyan. (Unless a rasha, like a qatan, could be
counted in extremis at the 10th toward a minyan with sefarim present.)
It's certainly worth bouncing of the chevrah on Avodah.
So, I'm asking.... What do you think?
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger Live as if you were living already for the
mi...@aishdas.org second time and as if you had acted the first
http://www.aishdas.org time as wrongly as you are about to act now!
Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning

Micha Berger wrote:
> At 9:06am EST this morning, R Dmitry Kreslavskiy (CC-ed; a friend of mine from
> around the neighborhood) commented:
> So how does this work? If a person is a home abuser, G-d forbid, and
> hits his wife, that means he cannot be counted towards a minyan? So
> what happens if he davens with another group of 9 unsuspecting
> people? Is such davening not considered davening with a minyan?
>
> To which I replied:
> I think you're right. I think the people would be beshogegim not
> davening with a minyan. (Unless a rasha, like a qatan, could be
> counted in extremis at the 10th toward a minyan with sefarim present.)
>
> It's certainly worth bouncing of the chevrah on Avodah.
>
> So, I'm asking.... What do you think?
I don't think it works like that. I haven't seen anywhere that a rasha
doesn't count toward a minyan; all I've seen is that one may not count
him. The most straighforward reading is that he *does* count, but one
must pretend otherwise. If we know that we have nine plus a rasha we
must not say a davar shebikdusha, even though there really is a minyan
present. It's a knas, not a change in metzius. We punish him by
treating him as if he weren't there. But in fact he is there, and
therefore there is a minyan. After all, the ten meraglim were an eidah;
just not an eidah we would care to be associated with. So if the other
nine don't know about the rasha then there's no problem.
--
Zev Sero The trouble with socialism is that you
z...@sero.name eventually run out of other people?s money
- Margaret Thatcher

R'nCL wrote:
> Now it is indeed possible that what
> the Teshuva Me'ahava is talking about is a shul
> without a mechitza (he is talking about the shul
> in Prague, and while that does indeed have a
> women's section, it is so walled off from the
> men's section that it is hard to see it being
> described as part of the shul proper and I
> imagine the minor daughters were being brought
> into the main shul
You haven't been there, have you? The Altneue Shul does not have any
women's section. It has windows onto an alley, where the women could
come. And the windows are tiny, while the walls are thick.
My tangential remark of course makes your argument on how to appraise
the Theshuvot meAhavah all the more powerful.
--
Arie Folger,
Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/
* Is Mu?ammar Al-Qadhafi Jewish
* After the Tefillin Terror Scare
* Der schwierige Nachlass
* Was ist Bitach?n (Zuversicht)?
* Endlich ein Mass Gerechtigkeit
* The Oldest Holy Places
* Videovortrag: Tehillim als Gebet

> This is an extremely serious misrepresentation and distortion of the
> Rambam. He does not permit kol isha, as you seem to believe.
>
> Rn' Toby Katz
My interpretation of the Rambam is explicit in Rabbi Yehiel Weinberg.
Rambam says something like assur l'histakel b'etza ketana kedei
leihanot, v'gam lishmoah kol shel ha-erva. Is there any possible
interpretation other than to say (as Rabbi Weinberg does) that both
kol isha and etzba ketana are conditioned on kedei leihanot?
As for the Aharonim...
I realize my interpretation is cavalier, but what can I say? The
rishonim will interpret kol isha based on time and place, and Ra'avad
and Ra'avya both limited it to singing based on this, whereas the
clear peshat of the Gemara (as well as the interpretation of Rambam
and Rabbi Yehuda he-Hasid) is that is that kol isha includes even mere
speech. How can the Aharonim say that hergel is an illegitimate means
to limit kol isha, when they rely on the hergel-limitation when they
say kol isha is limited to singing? I cannot think of a more explicit
contradiction! They are relying on hergel at the very moment they say
hergel is not a legitimate factor! If you reject hergel, then you MUST
say that to speak to a woman violates kol isha. And if you say kol
isha is limiting to singing, that itself is a legitimation of hergel.
Read Rabbi Howard Jachter's article (cited in my essay), for example.
It's an excellent article, and a very useful one, to which I am
indebted. But it's rather frustrating to see him discuss Rabbi
Weinberg at length, and then conclude that no posqim have allowed
hergel to mitigate the prohibition. Excuse me?? Isn't that EXACTLY
what Rabbi Weinberg did?? He discusses Rabbi Weinberg, but by the end
of the article, he seems to have entirely forgotten all about him.
It's one thing to say that hergel is theoretically a legitimate
mitigating factor BUT that there is insufficient hergel nowadays to be
meiqil in practice. It one wants to argue with me on metziut, and say
that contrary to my argument, there IS hana'ah / hirhur in kol isha
even today, that's an argument I'll hear. I presume that Rabbi
Weinberg, for example, would argue that there IS hana'ah / hirhur in
kol isha, except for in zemirot and religious youth-group choirs. But
to argue that hergel is not theoretically a valid argument in the
first place???!!! That contradicts the explicit words of Rambam and
the Tur-Shulhan Arukh, as well as several other rishonim.
I'll also note that Rabbi Yehuda Herzl-Henkin, in his criticism of
Rabbi Saul Berman, endorses Rabbi Berman's criticism of the aharonim.
In Rabbi Henkin's words, "Still, parts of his discussion are
illuminating, regarding the achronim, and his call for examining the
practical parameters of kol b'ishah is well taken."
So if someone wants to say that there IS hana'ah / hirhur in kol isha
today, that seems to me to be a reasonable argument. But to say that
it doesn't even matter whether or not there is hirhur / hana'ah in the
first place, that is an incredible argument that flies in the face of
the Rambam.
Michael Makovi

I will review some s'varos here w/o regard to sources
The A's are strict
The B's are lenient
Questions:
1 Is it OK to look at married women's hair in our society?
A NO it is erva
B YES we have been desensitized so no harm
2 Is it OK to hear a female voice via radio or recording?
A NO it is kol Isha erva
B Yes we have been desensitized to recorded voices - [unless the song
itself is suggestive]
3 May we view a "scantily clad" woman?
A No. It's viewing erva
B ?? Probably assur
4 May we view a woman singer singing live
A NO it's kol isha erva
B depends
If we she is dressed properly
YES because we are desenstized [EG Kathy Lee Gifford]
If not
No if it's like Britney Spears
------------------------
un-tz'nius nature of women singer-entertainers that was the issue. I
don't know how grounded that was in posqim, but they felt that "opera"
when the women were properly attired were "more or less ok"
KT
RRW
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

> R'nCL wrote:
> > Now it is indeed possible that what
> > the Teshuva Me'ahava is talking about is a shul
> > without a mechitza (he is talking about the shul
> > in Prague, and while that does indeed have a
> > women's section, it is so walled off from the
> > men's section that it is hard to see it being
> > described as part of the shul proper and I
> > imagine the minor daughters were being brought
> > into the main shul
>
> You haven't been there, have you? The Altneue Shul does not have any
> women's section. It has windows onto an alley, where the women could
> come. And the windows are tiny, while the walls are thick.
Actually we were in Prague once for Shabbas, and I was basing this on my
memory of the shul we davened in that Shabbas. But come to think of it, I
think it was not the Altneue Shul, but another one that was actually open
for services, and it was probably the Altneue Shul that he was referring
to.
> My tangential remark of course makes your argument on how to appraise
> the Theshuvot meAhavah all the more powerful.
> Arie Folger,
Regards
Chana

R Dmitry Kreslavskiy
> So how does this work? If a person is a home abuser, G-d forbid, and
> hits his wife, that means he cannot be counted towards a minyan? So
> what happens if he davens with another group of 9 unsuspecting
> people? Is such davening not considered davening with a minyan?
>
*The Shulchan Aruch* says:
*Shulchan Aruch**^ **(C.M. 420:1-2): *It is prohibited for one Jew to
hit another. If he does hit someone he has transgressed (Devarim 25:3):
which prohibits punishing a person with more blows than he was sentenced
to receive. Since the Torah prohibits hitting a wicked person more than
his wickedness deserves, it is even more obvious that it prohibits
hitting a righteous person. Anyone who even raises one's hand to strike
another -- even though he doesn't hit him -- is called a wicked person.
*Rema: *Also see 421:13. Furthermore concerning a man hitting his wife
see E. H. 154. There are some who say there is an ancient cherem
(ostracization) if a man hits another and this cherem has to be removed
in order for the person to be counted as part of a minyan. As soon as he
has accepted to follow the law he is removed from this cherem -- even
though he hasn't yet placated the person he hit. If a person hit another
with a blow that caused damage less the value of a peruta he receives
the punishment of lashes -- since there is no obligation to pay for such
damage. Even if a person gratuitously hit a non-Jewish slave -- he
receives the punishment of lashes since this slave is obligated to keep
mitzvos.
*Rashba(#244 - Attributed to Ramban):* Question: It is practise in these
lands is that someone who is seen acting improperly and he doesn't
listen to rebuke he is placed in nidoi (banned) and is not counted for a
zimun for birchas hamazone and he is not counted as part of a minyan and
his dead are not buried -- even if it is a child or someone born after
the ban was pronounced and his son is not circumcised. Do these
prohibitions of burying the dead and circumcision constitute taking an
oath to nullify a mitzva or not? Answer: All those who include things
that are permitted with things that are prohibited such as this case the
oath applies on the mitzva as reshus (Shavuos 22)... Furthermore these
are decrees for the welfare of society (migder milsa) for which beis din
has the right to uproot even Torah laws in order to make a protective
decree. As R' Elazar ben Yaakov said, "I heard that beis din can beat
and punish not in accord with the Torah. This is not done to abolish the
Torah but rather to protect the Torah. There was a case of a man who
rode a horse on Shabbos... And another case of a man who had intercourse
with his wife under a fig tree...The gemora concludes that these are all
permittted for the sake of the welfare of society (miger milsa) [Yevamos
90b].
*So your question is actually "What exactly was the condition of the
cherem?" since it was a decree for the benefit of the community. If it
were to prevent a rasha from joining a minyan - but not to punish those
who needed a minayn - then he would be counted in the minyan bedeved.
However if the community felt that no one would take the cherem
seriously unless it was absolute - then they could decree that he
doesn't exist even bedeved. That would make the cherem much more serious
and people would take care to never utilize such a person.*
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On Wed, 2010-02-03 at 13:58 +0100, Arie Folger wrote:
> R'nTK wrote:
> > 1. Avraham pays 400 shekels for Me'aras Hamachpela and the
> > shekels are defined as "over lasocher." (Ber. 23:16). The pasuk
> > doesn't just say Avraham "paid" 400 shekels, it says he "weighed
> > out" 400 shekels, so you know he paid top dollar.
>
> Just a tangential point: Of course he weighed it, as minted coins with
> standard valuation were not invented yet. Silver, gold or brass was
> paid in weight. KNLAD.
Bava Kamma 97b: What was the coin of Abraham Avinu? ? An old man and an
old woman on the one side, and a young man and a young woman on the
other.
i.e. Avraham minted a coin, so it could very well have been invented
before he bought Ma'arat HaMachpelah.
--Ken

On Wed, Feb 03, 2010 at 11:40:29AM -0600, Chanoch (Ken) Bloom wrote:
: On Wed, 2010-02-03 at 13:58 +0100, Arie Folger wrote:
: > Just a tangential point: Of course he weighed it, as minted coins with
: > standard valuation were not invented yet. Silver, gold or brass was
: > paid in weight. KNLAD.
: Bava Kamma 97b: What was the coin of Abraham Avinu? ??? An old man and an
: old woman on the one side, and a young man and a young woman on the
: other.
: i.e. Avraham minted a coin, so it could very well have been invented
: before he bought Ma'arat HaMachpelah.
There is no indication that that coin was minted by Avraham avinu.
Any more than a Sacagawea Dollar was coined during her lifetime.
Avraham acted in a way that caused later rulers to mint such coins in
his honor.
Back in 2003 I suggested the reverse -- that Avraham made commemorrative
coins, but it had nothing to do with money. It was just a way to carry a
lesson in your pocket.
(C.f. http://www.soulcoin.com/HumilityandJoy.html )
However, I understood "oveir lasokher" to mean that Avraham did use some
kind of standardized pre-weighed sheqel pieces.
Current theory is that the oldest coins were the Aegina Chelone coins,
which started minting in 700 BCE at the earliest. (There is one that
old at the Bibiliotech Nationale, Paris.)
Avraham avinue bought Me'aras haMachpeilah in 1677 BCE (or perhaps 168
years earlier, depending on your beliefs about Galus Bavel). Well before
the earliest known coin. But I have two bits of wiggle room:
First, the earliest coin found so far isn't necessarily the earliest coin.
Second, we're not talking about coins, disc-shaped and pictures stamped on
them. Rather, some precursor to coins. Something that by common agreement
were accepted as something more than batering against metal. Premeasured
pieces of known weight and purity.
See Rashi ad loc -- it was some kind of currency that would be accepted
anywhere.
Last Dec, Rn Leah Aharoni posted the following to mail-jewish
<http://ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v57/mj_v57i52.html#CQR>:
Gershon Bar Kochva, an Israeli military historian and a resident of
Hebron, discussed this topic in a recent lecture.
According to Bar Kochva, at the time of Avraham, the standard practice
was to carry precious metals in pre-cut slabs (sort of like Toblerone
chocolate bars) and break of as many pieces as was necessary for a
particular transaction. In Hebrew, this breaking off was call btziya,
hence the Hebrew expression "betza kesef."
According to Bar Kochva, Avraham's 400 shekels were equivalent to
approximately US$ 700,000.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger Man is capable of changing the world for the
mi...@aishdas.org better if possible, and of changing himself for
http://www.aishdas.org the better if necessary.
Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning

On Tue, Feb 02, 2010 at 11:19:24PM -0500, Daniel Bukingolts wrote:
: Does anybody know the source for the "tehilas Hashem..." addition to shir
: hamaalos in bentching and why do many people say it is anti zionist to
: include it?
Barukh haba!
I answered the following to RDB already, but since I wasn't sure enough,
I pushed him to ask the list:
My family minhag is to say Tehillas, and my greatgrandfather (the
last generation to make a home in Litta) was a Zionist. It is also in
Siach Yitzchaq, the standard Ashkenazi Dutch siddur. It actually dates
back to Tzefat, even though Sepharadim don't add pesuqim. The bit about
it being added to tone down the Zionist implications of Shir haMaalos
is urban legend -- or at most why some johnny-come-latelies adopted an
existing minhag.
Edot haMizrach (as opposed to Sepharadim) say Teh' 67 ("Lamnatzeiach
biNginos Mizmor Shir") -- with five pesuqim appended aftrward. A
parallel extension?
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward
mi...@aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back.
http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous
Fax: (270) 514-1507

Finally, I can wrap up explaining what I was thinking rather than
writing while people are posting more explanation than I could keep up
with as quickly as it was coming in.
I think there are two questions:
1- When a berakhah is to be made
2- The matbei'ah.
My inclination was to say that the Rosh was speaking of #1, that we
do not add times for berakhos. But if the situation arises and there
is no appropriate berakhah from before chasimas hashas, we do coin a
new one to be said. This question is the more chamur one. After all,
that's where sheim Hashem lashav, berakhah levatalah, berakhah she'einah
question come up. Saying you can't come up with new excuses to invoke
sheim Hashem as part of a berakhah (shevu'ah or not) appears to me to be
pretty compelling.
Our original question was of this sort. The person just finished
eating, so question #1 is answered "yes" -- now is the time to make a
berakhah. However, if this particular food does not fit al hamichyah but
requires a berakhah achas me'ein shalosh, Tosafos are free to suggest
a new variant.
It is true that I didn't consider birkhos shevach. And to fully consider
it, one has to think about the implications of the 18 (or 19) berakhos
in a tefillas nedavah.
But let's say for now that the "when a berakhah is to be made" question
means that the positions in the siddur where berakhos are made. E.g.
Chazal said Barukh sheAmar and Yishtabach, but my making similar berakhos
before and after Qorbanos would be a problem.
(Tangent: The Bal'adi Teimani siddur has a leading berakhah before
Qorbanos -- birkhas haTorah! Rather than our "Eileh Devarim", they go
straight to parashas Tamid, IIRC.)
OTOH, a woman saying "she'easni kirtzono" as the third in the sequence
wouldn't then defy the Rosh's rule.
I wrote "let's say for now" (3 par up) because the above has a
problem.... The berakhah of "[ha]meqadeish [es] shimkha/o barrabim"
was coined as a birkhas hamitzvah before dying al qiddush Hashem in
the Crusades. It was then pulled into the siddur, perhaps as a berakhah
before *living* as a qiddush Hashem. But in any case, saying it daily
appears to defy the Rosh -- both the coinage and the time for saying it
is new.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet
mi...@aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on
http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur.
Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter

To go off on a slight tangent, I would like to get a clearer idea of what
exactly constitutes "ideas acquired thru ruach hakodesh"? There seems to be
an entire continuum of ideas that may come to a person through nevuah
(chesyon), a malach, bas kol, gilui Eliyahu, ruach hakodesh, chalom, sod
HaShem el yerai'ov, seyata DiShemaya, and finally "one's own" ideas. Can
anyone clearly differentiate between all of the above - if in fact they are
all distinct from each other. Nevuah (chesyon), malach, bas kol, gilui
Eliyahu, are relatively easy to differentiate (even if the latter 3 seem
fairly similar), but the others from ruach hakodesh on down the line the
differences are not so clear. Part of this would be the discussion of how
one originates "one's own" ideas - where (who) do they come from (the id,
the neshama, from whatever level of seyata DiShemaya one has earned, from
his yitzros, but ultimately all are from HaShem etc)? Looking for some
clarity on these subjects.
Kol Tuv
Chaim Manaster
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> Rabbi Wolpoe,
> With all due respect, I believe you have read the pesak
> incorrectly. Keilim are mutter, not the process? If that was his position,
> surely he would have said it differently
> I think it best to post it and see what others say.So here it is.
> Martin Brody?
[I posted a second copy at
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/faxes/yabiaOmerYD10:4.pdf>
-micha]
WADR it appears that Martin is confusing the SA with ROY [maybe the same
via gilgul? ;-)]
I was explaining the SA You seem to be confusing SA with ROY.
due to being anxious to prove a point w/o the benefit of even cursory
research. With such conflation I'm not sure you have a handle on SA,
ROY or my points.
I would opine that An agenda driven read is rarely an objective honest
read.
Before I post a tranlsation of SA
I recommend to:
1 Read it slowly 3-10 times as Hacham Isaac Sasoon says "let the text
speak for itself"
2 Skip Rema and any commentaries
3 And to inform one's read. See only the SA himself EG O"Ch 452:2
And no one else
4 add commenataries later
I also recommend writing down the translation on paper and going over
with a havrusa.
Ask yourself where in the Halachic universe is using "taam pagum"
a l'chathcila heter to mix things together - viz. BbCh or issur?
I have some sources on this issue but I will be COY re: ROY and not
share them yet. ;-)
KT
RRW
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